Daley's appeal denied

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Recently suspended minor league pitcher Gary Daley Jr. said he appealed his 50-game ban, but it has been denied.

The 2003 Nevada Union graduate was made aware in mid-November that he tested positive for methylphenidate, a chemical used in the prescription drug Ritalin. He had been going through the appeal process up until his suspension was announced Friday by Major League Baseball.

Daley Jr., who said he has a therapeutic use exemption for the prescription for Adderral, said he ran out of his prescription and borrowed a pill he believed to be the same as his from a teammate.

“I took the wrong prescription form of Adderall,” Daley Jr. said. “I had ran out of my prescription and borrowed a pill from a player on my team who had a therapeutic use exemption from Major League Baseball, and it turned out not to be the same prescription that I was taking, which was Adderall. It was actually Ritalin.”

Daley Jr. appealed on the grounds that it was a simple mistake and that he has a therapeutic use exemption for Adderall, but with strict regulations, the appeal board denied his appeal, he said.

“I already appealed, and it’s been denied,” Daley Jr. said. “According to Major League Baseball and the strict regulations that they have after the past 10 years with what’s been going on, there’s no real leniency for mistakes like that.”

Daley Jr., who spent the 2012 season pitching for the Midland Rockhounds, a Double-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics, said the news of the positive test took him by surprise.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I went through all the right channels to have a therapeutic use exemption to take Adderrall. You have to do that to take any kind of amphetamine prescribed by a doctor.

“I’ve always gone through the right channels, and did everything by the book so I was in shock, because I had assumed I hadn’t done anything outside of what was legal. But, I was wrong.”

Daley said he will serve his suspension and that he has no desire to step away from the game.

“I serve my suspension,” Daley said of his future. “At the end of the day, it was my mistake and my responsibility because it’s my body. That’s basically the gist of their argument to me.

“Do I think it is fair or anything like that? Honestly, I don’t. But that’s the way it is. That’s the penalty they handed down to me, and I will take it like a man.

“The process is pretty simple and straight forward when it comes to what they are lenient on, which is very little, and at the end of the day it was my mistake and my responsibility.”

During the 2012 season Daley went 10-10 with a 5.11 ERA for the Midland Rockhounds.